them, which was completely exposed to their view, but they could see nothing. A party of them immediately went down to ascertain if possible what this singular noise and invisible labour could mean; but on arriving at the spot, they heard the sawing, to which were now added hammering and driving of nails, upon the forth above, whilst those who stood on the forth continued to hear it in the hollow. On comparing notes, they resolved to send down to Billy Nelson’s for Frank Martin, a distance only of about eighty or ninety yards. He was soon on the spot, and without a moment’s hesitation solved the enigma. “’Tis the fairies,” said he. “I see them, and busy crathurs they are.” “But what are they sawing, Frank?” “They are makin’ a child’s coffin,” he replied; “they have the body already made, an’ they’re now nailin’ the lid together.” That night the child certainly died, and the story goes, that on the second evening afterwards, the carpenter who was called upon to make the coffin brought a table out from Thomas’s house to the forth, as a temporary bench; and it is said that the sawing and hammering necessary for the completion of his task were precisely the same which had been heard the evening but one before--neither more nor less. I remember the death of the child myself, and the making of its coffin, but I think that the story of the supernatural carpenter was not heard in the village for some months after its interment. Frank had every appearance of a hypochondriac about him. At the time I saw him, he might be about thirty-four years of age, but I do not think, from the debility of his frame and infirm health, that he has been alive for several years. He was an object of considerable interest and curiosity, and often have I been present when he was pointed out to strangers as “the man that could see the good people.” With respect to his solution of the supernatural noise, that is easily accounted for. This superstition of the coffin-making is a common one, and to a man like him, whose mind was familiar with it, the illness of the child would naturally suggest the probability of its death, which he immediately associated with the imagery and agents to be found in his unhappy malady. [1] The dressings are a species of sizy flummery, which is brushed into the yarn to keep the thread round and even, and to prevent it from being frayed by the friction of the reed. * * * * * ANTIQUITY OF RAILWAYS AND GAS.--Railways were used in Northumberland in 1633, and Lord Keeper North mentions them in 1671 in his journey to this country. A Mr Spedding, coal-agent to Lord Lonsdale, at Whitehaven, in 1765, had the gas from his lordship’s coal-pits conveyed by pipes into his office, for the purpose of lighting it, and proposed to the magistrates of Whitehaven to convey the gas by pipes through the streets to light the town, which they refused.--_Carlisle Journal._ * * * * *